Yeah, that’s what kind of, we get the idea a little bit yeah, because other people from different countries also try as hard as they can to get a medal or a gold medal in the Olympic Games. And you know, if they can work hard, we can work hard as well.
I always thought the Vancouver Olympics would be my last destination, but I’m extending it to Sochi… I want to start anew, not as an Olympic medalist but just as yet another figure skater.
Winning the Olympics was an amazing feeling, but afterwards, it was a bit like, ‘What do I do now?’ So I lost a bit of motivation going back into training and competitions; I had so much pressure on me. I kept thinking, ‘I’m the Olympic champion. I can’t lose’ – being only 19 and having to deal with all that pressure.
The Olympic Games are the quadrennial celebration of the springtime of humanity.
I’ve been training super hard at the Lopez Taekwondo Academy in Houston, which belongs to my brother Jean. For me, I think confidence is the biggest thing; it’s all mental. I train with the best of the best, including my brother Steven, a five-time world champion who won Olympic gold medals.
Adding an Olympic medal to everything that I have already accomplished would be so huge for me.
I remember going down the tunnel into the Olympic Stadium and getting a glimpse of all the people and hearing all the noise, all the people shouting for us. I’d seen Usain Bolt on the warm-up track, and then, as I walked into the stadium, I sort of realised how big it was!
Getting to know athletes from all over the planet is a big part of the Olympic experience.
In my first fight, I acknowledged it. I’m a professional wrestler, this is who I am, who you know me as. But guess what, I’ve also been wrestling since I was 5 years old – real wrestling – amateur wrestling, Olympic wrestling.
I’m so over the moon that I have the opportunity to represent my country at a third Olympic Games.
Any chance we have to skate for another Olympic medal, it’s amazing.
The ‘Bird’s Nest’ National Stadium, which I helped to conceive, is designed to embody the Olympic spirit of ‘fair competition.’ It tells people that freedom is possible but needs fairness, courage and strength.
Mum was a high-jumper and qualified to go to the Olympics, but it got into the newspapers that she was married to my father, and the church put pressure on her to pull out of the Olympic team, saying, ‘You can’t be exposing all your legs.’ That’s how strong the influence of the church was on us all.
Now if I go back home with an Olympic medal, the reaction of my family will give me immense satisfaction.
Even an unsuccessful Olympic bid can be the source of change within a city if organizers adhere to their vision.
The IOC are the guardians of the Olympic ideal.
For most of the track world, the Olympic year is such a huge year, and it’s a big year for us marathoners too.
We have to harness the Olympic experience and this inspiration young people have to get into sport.
Personal honors never meant much to Bill Russell, one of America’s most successful athletes with 2 college titles, 1 Olympic gold medal and 11 – count ’em, 11 – N.B.A. championships with the Boston Celtics.
I see the opportunity to pursue an Olympic berth as a chance of a lifetime.
The title ‘black swimmer’ makes it seem like I am not supposed to be able to win a gold medal, I am not supposed to be able to break the Olympic record, and that is not true, as I work as hard as anybody else, and I love the sport, and I want to win, just like everybody else.
We all have limitations. I don’t have the right genes to be an Olympic weightlifter. I don’t have the right genetics to be an Olympic sprinter. Or gymnast. Sure, if I trained my whole life, perhaps I could have become fairly decent in those sports.
Yes, I am the Olympic champion, but this is not the end of it. I want all the gold that there is out there, everything that exists in figure skating. In all events, in all competitions.
You can be an Olympic champion in 9.5 secs, but to be the greatest, there’s more to it. It takes a bit of forethought and a lot of mental application.
I played softball at George Washington University, and then I played professionally for the Mid-Michigan Ice. I had a couple of tryouts with the U.S. Olympic Team, but I don’t know if I have a word to describe how bad one of the tryouts was. It was the worst tryout in the history of tryouts. It was that bad.
A lot of guys get out of wrestling immediately after winning a gold medal. Every time another Olympics comes around, it’s always a bunch of fresh faces. For me, to win an Olympic gold and have a chance to win another would be huge for our sport.
I didn’t set out to win Olympic medals, to play at UConn, to play in the WNBA. I just loved to play basketball. It’s really very simple. Then when you start thinking about those other things, that’s when thinking gets complicated.
In wrestling, you’re talking about a fraternity of champions, and I got a chance to be a part of that Olympic championship club. And anyone that ever won the Olympics in wrestling, there’s something different about them.
Having the ambition of becoming Olympic champion is a whole different ambition from wanting to be the greatest.
Already 2008 has proved a tumultuous year in terms of global perceptions of China, and there are still 59 days to go until the Beijing Olympics. The tragedy of the Sichuan earthquake followed hard on the heels of the riots in Tibet and the demonstrations surrounding the Olympic torch relay.
In 2007, I dreamed of Olympic gold but got outpointed in the Olympic trials.
Every now and then, you’ll get one of those days when you’re feeling rubbish or when you have to pretty much drag yourself out of bed to get to training. But then you’ll see the Olympic pool, and all the excitement and adrenaline will come rushing back.
Looking back, I feel very fortunate to have had such a long career. Many skaters end their careers in their early 20s. I had the opportunity to go to two Olympic Games – almost three after being the alternate in 1994 and then in 2006 being injured.
I just want kids to have a chance to go and try an Olympic sport. Every kid has a bike – that’s how I started, and one kid coming along and giving it a go could make that journey to the Olympics.
I got beat real hard and heavy in the Olympic Games in 1968 by a guy who swam an incredible race one time in his whole life, but he did it right at the right time. I’d like to be that guy now. Maybe that’s what I’m going to have to pull out of my hat to make the Olympic team.
My mom was a two-time Olympic champion and when I start to play hockey I dream that if I have chance to play for my country I will do it every time they ask me.
I have run two Olympic ‘A’ standard times over the past 12 months and with the time I ran at the African Championships last week I know my speed and fitness are constantly improving so that I will peak in time for the Olympics.
The Olympic Spirit is neither the property of one race nor of one age.
At nine, my mom used to tell me she saw an Olympic medalist in me. I used to take it as a joke, but she was very serious.
‘Ghost Canoe’ takes place on the storm-tossed tip of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, where I spent a lot of time hiking and exploring.
I grew up learning martial arts in Korea; my dad actually brought in an Olympic instructor to teach me as a teenager.
The Olympic Games are always in the head of every sports athlete. We work for that. The Olympics are the most important race. They’re each four years, and everybody wants to show their best performance.
If I can inspire at least one per cent to live what I lived being a part of the Canadian Olympic team then I’m very happy with that.
I don’t have anything Olympic in our house – no pictures, none of that stuff. Consciously I do that. With 10 children, I don’t want to hold that over their heads.
Female success stories from sporting events like the Olympic Games have played a role in shifting the Indian perception to see the female athlete as a hero and a role model for young Indian girls.
I said back in 2010 when I was rubbish at the European championships, ‘If I never win an omnium until 2012, I don’t care.’ I then won Olympic gold.
You don’t win the Olympic to make millions. People are always like, ‘Where is your Lamborghini?’
I pointed out that the Atlanta Olympic bomber – as well as Timothy McVeigh and the people who protest against gay rights at military funerals – are Christians but we journalists don’t identify them by their religion.
We feel like we’re the Olympic gold medallists and we have the opportunity to bring that gold home. That will be our goal and short of that we would probably be disappointed.
I graduated from Improv Olympic. I used to do standup comedy.
It’s humbling how my peers view me as not only one of the best Olympic power and weightlifters, but as an athlete.
Being an Olympic athlete doesn’t change who you are as a person.
My training has been going really well these past few days and my goal is to keep it up for the next few weeks and hopefully earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.
So far, my goals stops at making an Olympic team, and then if that happens, then I’ll jot down more goals.
The two designs are completely different. The first is totally futuristic, the second is more classical. You can of course get very excited about doing something completely out of the ordinary, just like the Olympic stadium in its time. But each to his or her own taste.
